8
ANTON
The doctors keep telling me her body is strong. But Jessa still hasn’t woken up since I found her. Even in the moments when her eyes flicker open, they stare unseeingly at me before fading shut again.
“You can go rest if you want,” Dr. Mathers says, walking into the suite in her light blue jeans and thick sweater. She doesn’t wear the white doctor’s coat and, for some reason, I trust her more than the rest of the idiots tending to Jessa. “Standing by her bed is not going to wake her up any sooner.”
“No, that’s what I hired you people for,” I snap. “And yet here we are.”
She gives me a solemn nod, unfazed by my irritation. “Her body needs time to recover. She’ll wake up when she’s ready.”
“And the baby?” I demand. “Nobody else has been able to tell me anything.”
Her face drops visibly. I almost regret asking the question. “It will be touch-and-go for the next twenty-four hours. We’re monitoring the baby carefully, though. I can assure you of that.”
“Save her,” I say firmly. “Just make sure you save her.”
Mathers nods. “I’ll do my very best.”
“Do better than that.”
If she’s scared of me, she shows no sign of it. She just gives me a determined nod and slips back out of the room.
I turn towards the floor-to-ceiling windows that look out over London. The view from the seventeenth floor is far from shabby. All I want is for Jessa to wake up and take a look at it with me.
The sound of my ringer slices through the quiet. I reach for my phone. “Yeah?”
“Where are you?” Lev asks.
“The Four Seasons. In the King’s Suite.”
“Ah. I’m assuming that means you got your woman back.”
“In a manner of speaking.”
Sensing my tone, Lev’s voice falls to match it. “Okay. What went wrong?”
“Everything.”
“Should I be worried?”
“Not worried,” I reply. “But ready. You should be ready.”
“Should I get Yulian?” he asks. “Should we be on a conference call for this?”
“No, I’m not interested in talking to Yulian right now.”
“Um… okay. Is there a reason?”
“What do you think?”
The pause on the other side is deliberate. “Do you want to talk now? Or should I call back later?”
Lev has always had a way of cutting through my defenses. One second, I want to hang up on him, but the next, I’m opening up.
“I got there just as she lost consciousness,” I tell Lev. “She was poisoned.”
Lev could ask a million questions. But, ever the pragmatist, all he says is, “Poisoned with what?”